I fixed a bug preventing new users from registering using certain web browsers. I never knew about the problem because my original test browser did not encounter the issue. If anyone still has problems, please email kanis@draconic.com

New users are now prompted to create a password instead of being sent a random password later.

Current password is now required to change account information via Edit account info.

6-07-18, 10:00pm: We're back, baby!

Find a Dragon is ported and tested, new user registration, Edit Account Info, forums advanced search, and all admin features. Basically, everything should be working again. If you notice problems, let me know.

6-05-18, 12:21am: Forums are back!

After many days of marathon coding, data conversion, importing, and testing, the forums are restored!

Amazingly, it all seems to work just as before, even obscure things like signature image resizing. Message search works, but advanced search fields do not. Search is now based on a different piece of software so I need to see what fields in advanced search will translate.

Also, I un-archived messages posted in the last year so you can reply to them. Going forward, messages won't be archived till they're 365 days old instead of 90 days.

If you notice any new bugs, especially critical things like duplicate messages appearing, messages being lost, linked out of order, etc, please email kanis@draconic.com immediately because the longer such things propagate, the harder they are to fix.

Most of my time has been spent converting message bodies from flat-file storage to in-database storage, and stored procedures from one database format to another. This is a pretty complicated task, but I found conversion software that gets it about 80% of the way. Unfortunately the remaining 20% is the most obscure stuff that is harder to figure out how to convert. Each time I figure out how to convert an obscure feature, I convert every use of that feature in every proc that uses it. So at this point, I'm hoping most of the remaining 87 procs will install without many additional features to figure out, in which case the remaining site features should be ready in the next weekish. But we'll see.

5-28-18, 2:06pm: Moving servers

Draconic's hard drive died. I've been wanting to move the site to a hosting service for a long time, but it requires converting the existing database to a new system. That work is not complete, but I'm going to work on completing it rather than waste time and money on restoring to a new hard drive.

Features on this page that aren't greyed-out have been converted. I'll un-grey more links above as I restore various sections.

There was a nightly backup run that seems to be intact, so not much data should have been lost. I've imported the latest version of the database to the new server and am working on converting database logic.

12-10-14, 7:27am: Dragon Dating Simulator

Indiegogo has someone wanting to produce a dragon dating simulator game. It looks a little hokey, but the artwork's decent and the humor looks reminiscent of the old text adventure games on DOS. It's pretty cheap to fund a copy for yourself and the author only gets the money if they reach their goal in the next 8 days, so spread the word.

UPDATE: They extended the deadline so you now have about 26 days.

11-27-14, 2:09pm: Back online

Around Nov 23rd, the Draconic server experienced a hard drive failure. It turned out that the hard drive that failed on the server was only used by the live snapshot backup system and that the main drive is still working after removing the failed drive.

During the downtime, it was assumed the server was not easily recoverable and we began to move to a new web hosting provider. Because a new host will save a lot of money vs running the dedicated server Draconic currently runs on, we're going to continue that move. It means porting a lot of database procedures to MySQL format which could take awhile, given KaniS's limited free time. Unfortunately this does mean the daily backups of the old server will no longer be occurring but hopefully nothing will fail before I complete the move to the new server, or maybe I can find an old 20gb or larger IDE drive to use to restore the backup system.

One thing the new hosting provider does not provide is IRC service. We're still deciding what to do about that, but the old IRC server should be working for now.

UPDATE 12-6: Ragora has set up a new IRC server and will be maintaining it. Thanks Ragora! irc.draconic.net now points at the new server and our local server will be deactivated in a few days. Porting MySQL code to the new web server has been going faster than anticipated so far, but I'm not to the complicated stuff yet.
UPDATE 12-26: Daily snapshot backups are working again.

8-08-14, 1:01pm: Internet connection problems

Draconic's internet connection is having some sort of problem with the line that the phone company can't come take a look at till at least Thursday. Until then, the site is often running slowly and is sometimes unreachable. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

Update: Verizon has to repair something in equipment on a phone pole that's on someone else's land, so they're waiting for permission to enter private property. They were supposed to give an updated ETA but never called. Hopefully things will be fixed early this week.
Update 2: The connection was fixed on Wednesday.

5-28-14, 1:41pm: Draconic's new IP

The new IP will be 66.159.195.153 and that new IP should become active Monday morning.

If that loads a message saying "This site can not be loaded by IP address", then the site is up under the new IP. If the connection times out without loading any page, then the site is still not available at either IP and you'll just have to wait.

Unfortunately you can't use the site by its IP address. Instead, wait 5 minutes. Close your browser, then try http://www.draconic.com again. If it still won't load, restart your computer. Restart your router, DSL modem, and/or cable modem as well since they will often cache DNS entries.

If it still won't work, then your DNS servers are caching the old IP for longer than they should. You can either just wait (a few hours will probably do it for most people), or you can click here for how to add a local DNS override to your hosts file. Add this line to your hosts file, save, then restart your browser:

66.159.195.153 www.draconic.com

Add a reminder to your calendar to remove that line from your hosts file in a few days or if/when the IP ever changes again, you won't be able to access the site because your hosts file will force you to use the wrong IP.

This IP change will also apply to irc.draconic.com but you should be able to connect to IRC directly using the new IP 66.159.195.153 if you need to.

Remember, these instructions won't be accessible on the web site if the web site is down so be sure to save them somewhere.

5-28-14, 10:09am: Draconic is changing IPs

Apparently the local hardware host for Draconic's DSL is going bankrupt so the ISP needs to move us to a different facility. This will require changing our IP address. I don't know what the new address will be yet, but I will post another announcement when I do. The change should happen in 3-5 business days. The web site will definitely go down for some period while they move the connection. It could be a short down time or a long one if they have technical difficulties.

For some people, your DNS servers will continue to resolve draconic.com to the old IP even after I change the main DNS entry. I've temporarily changed the main entry to tell other DNS servers to request a refresh every 5 minutes, but not all servers will honor that, so it could take a few hours or maybe even days for the local DNS servers of some of you to get updated with the new IP address. Keep an eye out for what the new IP is and I'll try to include instructions for how you might temporarily work around problems with local DNS caching the old IP.

10-16-11, 9:54am: Memorial

Athus Nadorian, aka Brian Dyer, passed away on Tuesday the 11th of October 2011 after a car accident. I just found out.

Athus is one of the earliest scalies I knew. One of the few who still felt close even after long periods of separation. He was definitely one of the kindest and most loving dragons I knew. May he find a place amongst the waves and wind again.

This site is maintained by
Chris Dragon (aka KaniS), along with help from others in the Draconic community.
KaniS may be reached through e-mail at kanis@draconic.com
If you'd like to provide a link to Draconic from your site, please feel free to use one of the logos
provided here.